Who's who?

After the recent England Touch AGM, the committee and operational board members for the 2013/14 season are as follows. We would like to thank those who've left us for their hard work and welcome all the new volunteers to their role.

These are exciting times for Touch in England and with a committed and driven team at the helm, we're looking forward to taking the next steps in developing and moving the sport forward to the next stage.

Gregg, president since 2011, is the principal leader of England Touch and has overall responsibility for the Association’s administration and development. The President is elected by the members and responsible for representing the views of the Association and its members.

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Gregg is an enthusiastic, focussed, passionate advocate for the sport of Touch as a whole and specifically for the growth and development of England Touch. He has a clear vision of the future direction and development of the ETA and has worked tirelessly over the last few years to further this, generating many positive outcomes thus far.

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By creating teams that work positively to support this vision and getting others to believe in, share and work hard to develop this, England Touch has had it's most successful 2 years on record, winning the European and Home Nations championships. Planning for the future is high on Gregg's priority list. He is currently overseeing the formulation of the ETA's strategic plan, which will outline the foundation of our efforts, programs and focus over the next few years. The plan will provide a clear direction for the sport, provide an outline of the activities we will undertake and set some ambitious but achievable targets for our sport to obtain.

Mike commenced as Vice President in 2011. His primary role is supporting the Directors of Coaching, Development, Referees and Governance within the ETA structure.

His core goals are to have more people playing Touch and for each person to realise their true potential. Mike is an avid Touch participant and currently plays for England M35, SE Regional team and for the Galaxy club.

Ben came on board in 2012 and has been involved in Touch since his youth. This role looks after arranging coaching courses and strategic planning to ensure the future development and success of both domestic and international Touch in England. Ben is heavily involved in setting selection policies, leadership roles and responsibilities, strategic priorities and principles and coaching course plans and progression.

Elected in 2011, Carly’s role is to ensure the ETA has effective corporate governance ensuring both regulatory and ethical procedures and processes. This encompasses document control, policy formulation, legal compliance and safeguarding.

The role also entails leading initiatives to compile our organisations best practices in partnership with the Sport and Recreation Alliance (member organisation) and Sport England. Incorporating her experience and expertise through employment within the Sports Development sector since 2003 and as a Touch participant since 2007.

The ETA board is to make a commitment to better governance by signing up to work towards the Voluntary Code of Good Governance for the Sport and Recreation Sector.

Mike is basically responsible for looking after the money! Previously an investment banker and accounting major with almost 20 years commercial experience, he is responsible for financial planning, streamlining the system, P&L and record-keeping, as well as financial reporting to the England Touch management committee.

Mike has had a long international Touch playing and coaching career and is currently taking a break from active participation… for now.

Email: Tim@englandtouch.org.ukNewly appointed to this post in September 2013, Tim is a hugely valuable addition to the team, overseeing the elite programme and development of national sides as well as high-performance coaching. This role provides England Touch with a role that is similar to Australia’s and New Zealand’s respective high performance set ups.-

Shelley’s main role within England Touch is the development of referees within England. Shelley has been working hard to increase the standard of refereeing across the country. Shelley co-ordinates the referee team at ETA sanctioned events as well as planning and presenting referee courses, coaching referees and assessing for badge upgrades.

The number of active referees has increased during Shelley’s time and there are big plans to expand further in the near future.

Dave is responsible for encouraging and supporting Touch development activities across England. With the aim of increasing the number of people playing Touch, and having them play more regularly in high quality games, we aim to draw more people into the elite game.

As Events Director, Kevin is responsible for annually delivering a range of tournaments for all ages and standards of players to compete in across England. These events will provide the opportunity for England Touch to nurture talent and improve standards of performance of all involved in Touch through regular high class competition.

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With a wide background of event delivery at all levels, Kevin has experience of providing high class sports events and competition, including a key field of play role at the 2012 Olympics. Kevin will be working closely with NTS/CTS and other event hosts across the season as well as continuing to develop as a Touch referee.

Phil has recently joined us in November as the PR/Marketing Director. He is responsible for communicating England Touch’s activities and facilities to attract members, funds and other resources. A key objective of his role is to raise the awareness of England Touch throughout the Touch playing and wider sporting community, enhance the reputation of England Touch and to create opportunities for sponsorship and partnerships between the sport and other organisations.

Steve is responsible for membership within England Touch, specifically ensuring that England Touch provides as much support and assistance to members as is possible and also administering the whole membership process for leagues, clubs and events affiliated to England Touch.

For a quickly expanding sport such as Touch, it is important that we are involved in all Touch operations throughout the country and engage as much as possible with each member. Anyone looking to affiliate their Touch operation should contact Steve, our website also has some information about affiliation, including FAQs: http://www.englandtouch.org.uk/index.php/why-eta/affiliation/

Jules is the current secretary of the ETA and organises and documents all of our formal minuted meetings as well as providing other admin assistance where required. Any general ETA enquiries should be sent through the secretary who will either answer your question or direct where appropriate.

Jules is a current player for Manchester Chargers and the W27s team.

Operational Board Members

Zoe has been involved with England Touch since 2008, and returns to the ETA operational board after being involved with the HP team throughout Euros 2012.

During time spent in Australia, she has developed links and made key contacts while participating in the high performance programme at Wallsend Wolves. Zoe played State Cup and Vawdon Cup for the Wolves rep team, and also played for Hornets in the National Touch League.

This experience, along with a passion for fitness and nutrition, will help her role in supporting Tim with the Elite programme.

Georgia is a former World and Double European Champion Dragon Boat Racer who represented GB for 4 years. Her passion for sport and understanding of competing at elite level make her ideal as a member of the ETA support team.

She has worked with the fantastic M35 team since 2012 and is looking forward to continued involvement in the coming exciting years. In her spare time Georgia trains for Crossfit and is actively engaged in competing where possible.

She did play Touch for a number of years but Crossfit took over and now she just shouts, very loudly, from the sidelines.

As part of her role as a teacher, moving in to her 18th year in the profession, Julia has undergone child protection and disclosure training throughout. As disclosure manager for the ETA, she has the responsibility of helping to safeguard the welfare of young children and vulnerable adults within the Touch community.

It is the disclosure manager’s role to ensure that all coaches and course deliverers affiliated to the ETA, working with young children and vulnerable adults, have up to date checks in place. Julia administers the DBS checks on all eligible coaches and is responsible for verifying applicant IDs.

Chris has been working on behalf of the ETA since 2011. He runs his own sports marketing, media and events business called Perfect Motion, that includes running successful Touch leagues in Nottingham. As part of his business interests he has been able to develop a strong working relationship with the RFU which culminated in the successful negotiation and signing of a Partnership Agreement in May 2013 – the first of its kind for England Touch. The relationship and subsequent 4-year agreement with the RFU will help to grow the Touch base of players across the UK as well as generate much needed funds for the ETA.

Chris is a Level 2 (not yet assessed) referee, England 35s player and former coach for the Midlands Tigers Women. He balances his business interests with lots of Touch, a wife and three children. He’s also just taken on the Operations Director role for Nottingham Rugby Football Club.

Cathryn has joined England Touch as the new Apparel and Kit Co-Ordinator. Her responsibilities include the administration or all kit and liaison with players and Managers to ensure that all International players are kitted out appropriately.

Cathryn joins us with vast experience in this area of expertise and has been involved in Touch as both a player and volunteer for over 20 year and is looking forward to being involved with England Touch.

Medical Team

Cari was appointed in 2011 and brings a wealth of experience to this role. Having created a strong multi-professional medical team, Cari’s main role is injury management, rehabilitation and prehabilitation programmes for all players involved in England Touch.

With strong links with the sports physiology department at Chester University a collaboration has begun to improve the strength & conditioning programmes, research the demands of Touch and aim to inform training programmes.

Emma qualified as a Chartered Physiotherapist in 2003 and has worked with the ETA since she accompanied the squad to the Touch World Cup. Emma was appointed as Head Physiotherapist for the ETA under the management of Cari Thorpe in 2011.

Emma is currently carrying out research into Touch related injuries and injury prevention developing her PHd ideas in collaboration with both The University of Huddersfield, Chester University and Manchester Metropolitan University. It is hoped that this knowledge will be able to inform the practice of the medical team and ultimately benefit the players.

We are the players. We are the supporters, willing us on. We are the medals, waiting to be won. We are the touchdowns, waiting to be scored. We are the men and women of all ages. We are the talent of today. We are the potential for tomorrow. We are one team. We are England Touch